AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

Yemen’s Houthi rebels seize more key islands in southern Red Sea, tighten grip on shipping routes

CAIRO (AP) — Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels captured more strategic islands in the southern Red Sea, government and Houthi officials said Monday, strengthening their control of a major maritime shipping route.

The capture of the islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish is the latest in the rebels’ swift advance around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key passage for Saudi oil shipments that has only become more crucial during the Iran war since it serves as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

Like Hormuz, which is located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula — is a chokepoint that connects the Red Sea to the open ocean and Saudi Arabia’s key Asian markets.

For more than a month, the Houthis have been striking Saudi oil infrastructure and shipping in the Red Sea, stepping up pressure on global oil prices and boosting Iran’s leverage in its war with the United States.

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have been attempting to rally and fight back. But the Houthi gains have seemingly come with little resistance.

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Second federal judge freezes Trump mail ballot order with US Supreme Court poised to weigh in

A federal judge late Sunday ordered that the U.S. Postal Service not implement President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail balloting, adding another obstacle to the administration’s effort to rewrite election rules as the Supreme Court is poised to weigh in on the matter.

The nation’s highest court already is considering the administration’s appeal of an order by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Boston prohibiting the Postal Service from enforcing its new rule on mail voting before this year’s midterm elections.

Late Sunday, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols in Washington, D.C., handed down a similar hold on the rule, which was issued Aug. 21.

“Plaintiffs have demonstrated that, absent an injunction, there is an increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections,” Nichols wrote in issuing the preliminary injunction. “The public has a strong interest in ensuring that doesn’t happen.”

Nichols in May had refused to issue an injunction because he ruled the lawsuit seeking one was brought too early. That was the high court’s reasoning late last month when it lifted an earlier freeze by Talwani. But because the administration had just issued its rule to move ahead with Trump’s plan, the plaintiffs in Boston and Washington, D.C., refiled their lawsuits.

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New warnings about the risks of AI to humanity revive a long-running debate

LOS ANGELES (AP) — New warnings from within the artificial intelligence industry have revived a long-running debate over whether advanced AI could escape human control and ultimately threaten humanity’s survival, and whether the companies developing the technology are doing enough to prevent such a scenario.

The CEO of Anthropic, the San Francisco company behind Claude, said he thought the industry needed to reduce the speed of its work, cautioning Saturday that a swarm of AI agents might be able to take over the internet in six months to a year unless companies devoted more time to putting safeguards in place.

Dario Amodei outlined a plan for companies like his and governments around the world to ensure that increasingly capable AI models remain aligned with the commands and values of responsible people days after two former Anthropic safety researchers publicly aired concerns that the existential threats AI might pose to humanity were receiving too little attention.

Here’s what to know about the recent dire predictions and whether any brakes might be put on AI advancement:

Concerns over the potential risks of the technology are rising as new AI models become more powerful, heightening both the potential for misuse by people with criminal aims, such as creating and spreading a disease that kills most of the world’s population, and the risk of AI systems going rogue in a dangerous way.

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Asian shares decline and OpenAI investor SoftBank shares plunge after calls to slow AI industry

HONG KONG (AP) — Asian shares were mostly lower Monday as shares of AI-related stocks, including Open AI investor SoftBank, declined following calls from Anthropic and OpenAI to slow AI development for safety.

U.S. futures edged lower, while oil prices gained more than 2% as worries grew over global oil supplies after Saudi Arabia shut down a major oil pipeline used to help bypass the Strait of Hormuz after it was attacked.

South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.3% to 6,684.37. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slid 0.8% to 63,492.99. Shares of Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank Group, a key investor in OpenAI, plummeted 10.7% after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei in his calls over the weekend that the AI industry should slow down to ensure its safety.

Altman also said in an interview with Fortune published Saturday that his AI firm would not make its initial public stock offering this year as it focuses on safety.

OpenAI and Anthropic are private companies, but both are expected to list and be traded publicly in the months ahead.

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Russians are still fleeing abroad, citing fears of a new mobilization and a loss of freedom

This summer, a 28-year-old digital content marketer packed up his suitcases and duct-taped boxes and fled Russia, leaving behind his family and friends and not knowing when he’ll be able to return.

“It is very sad to leave Russia,” he said in the southern city of Krasnodar before heading for the border with Georgia.

He blamed “the political situation” in Russia and complications over authorities restricting internet access as his reasons for leaving. Otherwise, “I never would have left for more than several months,” he told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

He is one of a number of people who either left or are contemplating a move amid recent Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia and persistent rumors of a coming mobilization of troops for the 4 1/2-year-old war.

The attacks this summer caused an unprecedented fuel crisis and dealt crippling blows to the booming e-commerce sector. Since last year, the government has cited the attacks to justify harsh restrictions on connecting to the internet.

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Trump downplays the need to check AI development and says he doesn’t want to cede edge to China

DUBLIN (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday played down the need for his administration to check the development of artificial intelligence, saying he worried about ceding America’s edge over China in a global competition and that winning would help address the risks from the advancing technology.

While acknowledging the need for some regulation, Trump provided no specifics about potential rules and attributed warnings about the technology moving too quickly and with little oversight to “negative forces” he did not identify, though industry pioneers have raised such concerns.

“We can put guardrails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that … shouldn’t be bringing it up, and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” Trump told reporters during a weekend trip to Ireland. “But whoever wins with AI wins.”

Asked later Sunday if he was trying to minimize the risks from AI, Trump said, “I’m not downplaying,” adding that artificial intelligence is “going to be more good than bad, but by a lot.” Speaking with reporters during the flight back to Washington, he repeated his earlier comment regarding the stakes for “whoever wins AI.”

The Republican president spoke a day after Dario Amodei, CEO of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, said the industry should put the brakes on its fast-moving development to give safety measures time to catch up. Other tech leaders, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, publicly agreed with Amodei.

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Trump agreed to new ethics rules to get a crypto bill across the line. But that might not be enough

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump had been hearing the message loud and clear for weeks about the sweeping cryptocurrency bill being written in the Senate: to get it across the line, he would have to agree to ethics provisions that apply to him, too.

First, Trump agreed to a measure that would bar him and his wife from issuing the types of meme coins that they swiftly launched as he prepared to return to the White House for a second time. And then another concession came late Sunday, when Republicans said Trump consented to a tougher ethics proposal that several key senators had demanded.

Now, a pivotal Senate vote on the cryptocurrency bill on Tuesday could mark a watershed moment for the $2.3 trillion market — but it hinges mainly on whether those sign-offs from Trump go far enough. That vote could determine whether Washington cements crypto legitimacy into law or whether a frustrated, deep-pocketed industry could unleash even more campaign cash in the midterm elections.

“A vote against the Clarity Act isn’t a principled stand against President Trump,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., the lead author of the crypto bill, told The Associated Press. “It’s a vote against implementing tough restrictions on politicians for crypto investments.”

The president has amassed significant amounts of crypto wealth while in office, complicating dynamics for senators drafting legislation to try to bring the fledgling digital assets industry into the mainstream.

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Amazon suspends use of 21 Air, cargo carrier whose plane careened off Miami runway

MIAMI (AP) — Amazon said Sunday that it has suspended its partnership with 21 Air after one of the cargo carrier’s planes loaded with Amazon packages careened off a Miami runway last week and killed five people.

The Boeing 767 came in fast on Sept. 6 and then barreled roughly 1,300 feet (396 meters) past the end of the runway and smashed into a van carrying workers at a plane cleaning company. All five people who died were in the van. Five others were hurt.

“After the tragic incident last weekend, we’ve spent time supporting the investigation and reviewing some of the surrounding circumstances, and we’ve decided to pause our operations with 21 Air, the operator of Flight 7598,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said a statement. “We’ll continue working to support the investigation and everyone affected.”

North Carolina-based 21 had flown packages for Amazon since 2024. The company didn’t immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment about Amazon’s decision.

The jet’s ownership history, weather conditions at the airport, maintenance records and operations by 21 Air were expected to be reviewed by investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board.

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Carney pitches Canada to global investors as Trump tries to pull investment south

TORONTO (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump wants factories and investment moving south to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is betting he can make billions flow north.

About 300 CEOs and senior executives from some of the world’s biggest investment firms will descend on the Four Seasons in Yorkville, a tony Toronto enclave of high-end restaurants and designer boutiques, for Carney’s Canada Investment Summit this week.

The investors collectively manage more than $120 trillion in assets, underscoring the scale of capital Carney hopes to tap as Canada tries to attract billions in new investment and reduce its economic dependence on the United States.

“Canada is about so much more than being next to the United States,” Carney said. “We have what the world wants.”

Carney pointed to Canada’s vast energy and critical-mineral resources, its highly educated workforce and trade agreements that give businesses based in Canada access to roughly 1.5 billion consumers around the world.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson says Trump’s $5,000 ‘dividend’ needs congressional approval

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s proposal to send $5,000 to every American adult if his Republican Party maintains control of the House and Senate in the November election needs congressional approval, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday, while pledging to try to make it happen.

Trump made the unusual pitch at the party’s midterm convention in Dallas last week, promising a “Trump Dividend” if voters keep the GOP in power on Capitol Hill. The president later told CBS News Texas that he did not think Congress would need to authorize the payments, though he did not specify how he could spend more than $1 trillion without lawmakers’ authorization.

But Johnson, R-La., said congressional approval is needed. “I would assume, yes, he’d need Congress to act, and that’s a creative idea,” he said.

A few hours later, Trump said he would deliver on his promise. “The 5,000’s going to happen, 100%,” he told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Ireland, where he attended a pro golf tournament at his resort.

Johnson, meanwhile, said he would work to get Trump’s proposal through Congress despite a small Republican margin.